Russian forces keep pounding critical power infrastructure in Ukrainian cities, killing more civilians and leaving tens of thousands of more people without electricity, as its troops step up the pace of their relentless attacks along the entire front line in the east.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned on December 15 that further strikes on Ukraine's infrastructure could lead to a serious deterioration of the humanitarian situation and spark further displacement.
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The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said on December 15 that Russian artillery fire was concentrated on Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, as Moscow is seeking to stabilize its tactical positions around Kupyansk in the eastern Kharkiv region and Zaporizhzhya in the southeast.
The recently liberated southern city of Kherson was left completely without power following Russian shelling that also killed at least two people on December 15, according to the head of the Kherson regional military administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych.
The shelling of Kherson region injured nine people, Yanushevych said. Russian troops attacked the center of Kherson city for the second day in a row, he said, adding that among the victims is a volunteer from an international organization who helped people during the shelling.
Russian forces also targeted critical infrastructure in the eastern city of Kharkiv on December 15, causing several explosions, the mayor said.
"Explosions in Kharkiv. The enemy is targeting infrastructure facilities. I am asking everyone to exercise utmost caution and stay in shelters if possible," Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
In a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva following a trip to Ukraine last week, Turk said on December 15 that Russian strikes were exposing millions of people to "extreme hardship."
"Additional strikes could lead to a further serious deterioration in the humanitarian situation and spark more displacement," Turk said. He called the war an "unmitigated tragedy and disaster."
Turk's remarks came as he formally presented a report which found that Russian forces killed at least 441 civilians in the early days of the invasion. Moscow has denied targeting civilians.
Turk said accountability for such incidents was "sorely lacking," adding that not a single member of Russia's armed forces was known to have been held accountable by Moscow for carrying out, or failing to prevent, these killings.
As Moscow kept up the unabated pressure on the whole front line and continued to target civilian areas, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned on December 14 that Russia's capability to launch a "major offensive may be restored" by the end of January or February.
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Kuleba said there are signs that Russia still has its sights set on larger portions of Ukraine and its huge missile attacks have turned the "entire country into a front line."
The latest wave of attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv was doing everything it could to obtain more modern and powerful antiaircraft systems and had made important progress on the issue this week.
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Zelenskiy was speaking after several media outlets quoted senior U.S. officials as saying an announcement on Washington's plans to provide the Patriot missile-defense system to Ukraine could be made as soon as December 15.
The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that if Washington confirmed these reports, it would be "another provocative move by the U.S." that could prompt a response from Moscow.
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a weekly briefing that the United States had "effectively become a party" to the war in Ukraine. U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, including the transfer of such sophisticated weapons as the Patriot missile system, "would mean even broader involvement of military personnel in the hostilities and could entail possible consequences," Zakharova said.
She did not specify what those consequences might be.
Asked about the Russian warning, Pentagon spokesman Air Force General Pat Ryder responded that the United States. was "not going to allow comments from Russia to dictate the security assistance that we provide to Ukraine.”
Ryder added that he found it “ironic and very telling" that Russian officials who launched a "campaign that is deliberately targeting and killing innocent civilians" would choose a word like "provocative" to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians.
The onset of winter has also led to an abrupt worsening of living conditions in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which fell to the Russians earlier this year following a months-long resistance put up by Ukrainian fighters.
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The city was almost completely destroyed by heavy Russian bombardments, and thousands of civilians were reportedly killed.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said the death rate in the Russian-occupied city has skyrocketed amid a lack of heating, food, and medical supplies.
"The incidence rate is insane. A flu epidemic is spreading in Mariupol. Hospitals are overcrowded. The ambulance does not even leave for those with a high temperature because there is no place to hospitalize people for treatment," Andryushchenko told RFE/RL.
"At the beginning of November, the weekly death rate was about 150 people. Last week it exceeded 250 deaths per week.... That is 7-7.5 times higher than it was before the beginning of this phase of the war," he added.
Andryushchenko's claims could not be independently verified.